My rescuers looked like the guys I see around the airport all the time—the ones out on the runway, or in the back lots, loading cargo or driving big, dented vehicles that haul things or move them or clear them away—tough, burly guys with scraped hands and meaty faces. But they moved quickly; in an instant, it seemed, they had positioned themselves between me and the men in the ski goggles.

The confrontation between the ski-goggle guys and the men from the truck was over almost before it started. As the truckers approached, one of the goggle men weakly waved his box cutter around, but all that got him was a solid whack with the tire chain that quickly brought him to his knees. The truckers soon had both attackers pinned against the side of their van, weapons raised as if they were going to lop off their opponents’ heads in some grisly, slasher-movie fashion, using the chain and crowbar. Instead, they dragged them around to the back of the van, ripped open the doors and tossed the two men inside. Then, after slamming the doors shut, the guy with the crowbar banged on the back of the truck so hard he left a visible dent.

I hadn’t realized that there was someone else in the van, but my rescuers must have seen him. Immediately, whoever it was gunned the engine and the van took off down the street, quickly disappearing into the darkness. In the silence that followed, I could hear the sound of water lapping against the rocks at the edge of the marshy shore just yards away, beyond the chain-link fence.

It was suddenly quiet; the dog had stopped yowling. Then he turned, ran a few steps and leaped into my arms. He was a small dog but still too big, really, to hold like that, and surprisingly heavy. And he was covered with blood—his, the attackers, I didn’t know. He was panting like he couldn’t catch his breath.

I couldn’t hold him, so I had to put him down. Immediately, he went into his characteristic stance of leaning against my leg. The truckers, who had waited in the road for a few moments, watching after the fleeing van, now walked back toward me. They were grinning, as if the minifight they’d just engaged in had turned out to be an unexpected pleasure.

One of them looked over at me and said, “You’re the bartender, aren’t you?”

I nodded. “I work at the airport,” I said.

He nodded. “Don’t we all?” he replied, which brought a loud guffaw from his companion. I decided to treat the remark as philosophy; I couldn’t imagine it would do any of us any good if I could suddenly place my rescuers, put them in a uniform and picture them working some late-night shift on one of Kennedy’s back lots, loading and unloading crates of valuable goods that sometimes got misplaced.

Still chuckling over his friend’s joke, the second man said, “So, bartender, are you okay?”

“Yes,” I lied. And it was a lie, a big one. The shock of what had just happened was really beginning to hit me now. I was shaking inside, feeling wave after wave of fear, anger—and worry about how badly hurt the dog might be.

“You know, if you’d ever like to sell that dog, I might be interested,” the first of my two new friends said. “Did someone train him to fight like that?”

“I don’t think so,” I said, looking down at Digitaria, who continued to lean against my leg. “But maybe.”

I thanked the men, and they good-naturedly waved at me as they walked away. It was when their backs were turned toward me that I saw another van come around the corner—but this one posed no danger. It was a black vehicle commonly called a dollar van. These illegal, low-cost vans and black cars regularly prowled the outer borough neighborhoods where regular taxis were never to be found. I flagged it down and climbed in, hauling my dog with me.

The van already had three other passengers who all just shoved over on the bench seats to make room for me and the dog. I told the driver where I wanted to go and sat back, clutching the dog’s leash. No one said a word about the fact that the dog was covered in blood. I assumed that I probably had his blood all over my clothes now, too.

The van weaved its way through the local streets, letting passengers off in front of different houses, all with unlit windows and the look of structures somehow sagging beneath the dark weight of the night. I recognized these places—they were, in a way, the modern-day equivalent of the Sunlite Apartments—rooming houses for immigrant families, where a lot of people lived together in a few small rooms. At some point in the journey, I realized that the van driver had the radio on. He was listening to a talk radio program being broadcast in Spanish. I couldn’t understand what was being said but I could make out two distinctly different voices, one edged with sarcasm, the other sounding incredulous, like neither believed what the other was saying. It was the kind of radio Jack and I had been talking about earlier—could it be that was just hours ago? Late night radio—radio for the workers, the up-all-nighters, the sleepless and the strange.

I was the last to be dropped off. That was how it worked with these black vans: the last one in was the last one out. It probably wouldn’t have mattered if I had a knife stuck in my side; I had to wait my turn. When it finally came, I gave the driver a few dollars and then led the dog into the vet’s office I had taken him to some weeks back. I remembered seeing a sign in the window saying they offered twenty-four-hour emergency service, and even though it was now past midnight, they were indeed open. I wasn’t sure how badly the dog had been hurt but I had brought him here because I didn’t want to take any chances.

Through the glass door, I could see a young woman sitting at the desk, leafing through a magazine. I buzzed to be let in and led Digitaria into the quiet office.

Seeing the dog striped with blood, the girl became instantly concerned. “Poor doggie,” she said. “What happened to you?”

I almost started to tell her, but the story was just too complicated and much too long. Instead, I said that I had been mugged, adding. “The dog jumped at the two guys who came at us and I think they may have cut him.” I saw her reaching for forms that I knew she was going to hand me, so I stopped her. “We were here just a few weeks ago. Perzin,” I told her, spelling my name. “We must be in your system.”

She turned to her computer, found Digitaria in her records, and then led us into an examining room. There were no other patients in the office tonight, she said, so the doctor would be with us in just a minute.

As we waited, Digitaria leaned against my leg again. I looked down at him and saw that his eyes were closed. It was possible that he was even asleep.

The vet did come in very shortly. He was a different doctor than the one I’d seen when I was here before but similar in manner and appearance: young, efficient, sympathetic. I told him a more detailed version of what had happened, and he lifted the dog onto a metal examining table.

“He’s got a bad cut on his leg,” the vet said. “I think that’s where most of the blood came from. I’m going to have to put in a few stitches, but I think he’ll be fine.”

“He kind of went crazy,” I said. “It was pretty amazing.”

The vet patted the dog on the head. “You’re a very good boy,” he said to Digitaria. “I’ll bet the other guys are in much worse shape.”

As he began to work on the dog, the vet asked me if I’d called the police. I hadn’t even thought of that; everything had happened very quickly, and once the attackers had been chased off, my main thought was about getting help for Digitaria.

“I guess I should do that,” I said.

The vet told me I could sit outside while he stitched up the dog, so I left the examining room. The girl stayed with them, so I was alone in the front room. It was nearly one A.M. now, and very quiet. The phones weren’t ringing and even the traffic outside had slowed down. The only sound that interrupted the peace was the ticking of a wall clock shaped like a black cat wearing a rhinestone-studded collar. Its long plastic tail swished back and forth with the beats of the second hand.